As professionals who research and evaluate companies, we get this question all the time: Do you ever buy products from companies that don’t score well on Hilde’s criteria? In other words, people want to know if we ever buy things from companies that are rated “Avoid” on your website? Our response: Yes, it happens all the time. But we do our best to try and find other options, including those from companies that are rated “Consider”. And we really try to support companies that receive a “Recommended” rating on Hilde.  

For example, sometimes we look for Target-owned brands (“Consider” rated) for many of the kinds of products made by large multi-national companies like Proctor & Gamble or Kenvue (“Avoid” rated). But sometimes there aren’t any other options, sometimes there are other options but they’re not available. And sometimes we’re just in a rush and we grab whatever.

As people who do most of the shopping in our households, we try to keep learning about different companies over time so the decision-making process becomes easier. But we’re not obsessive about it. And we don’t beat ourselves up if we make the wrong choice sometimes. We’re human, we’re busy, and we’ve got plenty of other things on our plates.